Polk AMR 150 Review - PAGE 3

Nowadays people are doing a lot more on their computers, and the number of emails I get regarding personal theater on the PC is increasing steadily. Its no wonder, my local Blockbuster video store has tons and tons of DVDs to rent, and even some mom & pop shops are offering DVD rentals. I threw my usual collection of test movies at the ARM150s and found them to be near perfect for home movies. I was particularly pleased with the effects that require extra aural detail, like some of the amazing scenes in Titan A.E. and the Ninth Gate. Titanic rang with some pretty amazing detail and effects. Dinosaurs roared to life  pay attention to the effects of the dinos walking and you can see that this type of performance requires good acoustic detail, and the AMR150 delivers. Explosions and bass heavy effects were likewise really good, more so than I would have expected given my experience with the music. I wasnt at all surprised, however, by the smooth and immersive experience from movies that rely heavily on perfectly melding music with visual elements. Movies like The Skulls, Braveheart and The Jackal literally draw you straight in with the excellent musical reproduction of the speakers.

The one thing that does disappoint is the phantom center channel. I never liked phantom center channels, but you can actually tell the difference in phantom center channel quality from speaker set to speaker set, and though the AMR150s werent half bad, I felt the stereo separation wasnt clear enough to throw the perfect center. This isnt a really big problem though, since most 4.1 speakers tend to have problems in the phantom center. The BA4800s have great stereo separation and even they dont produce a perfect center channel. Where movies suffer the most from this is dialogue. As I mentioned before, the speakers are excellent with music heavy movies, but here they also didnt do most of the dialogue justice, so it is somewhat of a trade off.

The AMR150 Does Gaming

I did all the requisite game testing and came out a happy camper. All the traditional action game audio was aggressively and accurately reproduced. The higher frequency clarity, in particular, helped to create an increased sense of detail and crispness to many effects, such as bullet casings hitting the floor and even something as simple as the reloading of a gun clip. Games with ambient music (like Oni, and Giants: Citizen Kabuto) literally sang with energy (remember what these speakers did for movies?).

Explosions and bass effects were good, but lacked the guttural feel that you can achieve with larger woofers. What is interesting is that the subwoofer gave more than you would you would expect from just any regular 4" woofer. Polk did a great job designing the thing to maximize what output they could.

The rear speakers proved to be well tonally matched with the fronts, even though the two do not share the exact driver components. You don't get a disjointed surround soundstage, and the front-rear transitions were pretty smooth. This is most important in games where positional audio becomes an in game cue, as it often is in shooters and titles making heavy use of surround audio.

Conclusions

I rarely get to sit down to a pair of speakers that are as thoroughly impressive as the Polk AMR150, and I dont think it will be soon enough before I get to test another set with sound quality of this caliber. Many of you will looking for the perfect 4.1 speaker solution at this price point will probably choose between the AMR150 and the Boston Acoustics BA4800. Both are superb, though each has its own character. The AMR150 does not get as loud as the BA4800, nor does it have as defined a center channel in music. On the flipside, the BA4800s arent as good generally in music (if you arent looking at perfect centering of vocalists), and they dont quite have as wide a soundstage in music. Both are about the same price, though I would edge the BA48000 out just a hair ahead of the AMR150s because overall they offer a more compelling package for me, with stands and all. If you are looking at sheer value though, the AMR150s are digital, and they do have the advantage of a tweeter/midrange design for added high-end clarity.

In all honesty I wasnt expecting to give such a positive review of the product, because my first experience with the AMR90 hadnt been enough to put Polk on my A list. With the AMR150, Polk aimed to provide an all round winner that could satisfy the games lover and still grab the elusive music enthusiast market by the tail. All this while trying to appeal to the cash strapped student and the movie hobbyist as well. I think they succeeded, and now the Polk brand has made its way into the hallowed halls of multimedia speaker celebrity, and to my A list ;).

Comments

You are definately right on the sub. If you get it too much past about mid-level, it does start to bottom out. But I think they combat that by using the reinforced port on the back to produce more bass at lower levels. Nifty idea.

Did the Santa Cruz give you seperate front/rear control with the dual spdif? I don't have one here (they wanted it back... dammit) so I can't test it.

Yeah that reinforced port is a pretty good idea. It definitely helps out.

I don't remember if I could control forward/rear volume with the Santa Cruz. I did all the forward/rear adjustments with the speaker controls (which works great).

The one thing I didn't like about the digital connection is that you cannot control overall system volume though. Like if you are playing an MP3 you can change the WAV out volume and that works, but the master volume has no affect at all on the digital ouput. This also negates muting from in the system, and since there is no mute on the speakers you cannot mute games at all, short of turning off the speakers.